Guests Like Fish
by persnicketyfics
Summary: This story came out of a conversation about my drabble series "Snake in the Hole". It is a bit AU and explores a side of Narcissa that I think exists, though we don't see much of it in the books. Revenge fic (kinda).


Narcissa sat in her room, curtains drawn, hair hanging lank around her face. She knew, logically, that she was depressed. Frightened, worried, perpetually petrified, yes, but also depressed. It was an almost unimaginable chore to rise from her bed each day, knowing that she had to present herself as the perfect wife to the world beyond her bedroom doors.

To him.

"Mum?" A voice sounded at the edge of her hearing, followed by a knock that seemed to rattle her down to her bones. The door creaked open, and her son - too thin, to worn for his young years - slipped through the crack. Light flooded in, then shuttered out as he closed the door behind and moved to kneel in front of the bed where she sat, unmoving. "Mummy?" Softer this time.

"Draco." Her voice rasped a bit, disused. She hadn't left the room in two days. They were all gone on some mission or another. Two days of freedom. Two days without perfection.

"It's...I'd hoped…"

She looked at him, blank faced.

"It's nearly Christmas, Mum. Won't you come out? The elves have made a lovely breakfast."

Breakfast. So it was morning, then.

She raised her eyes to his pale face, reaching out to caress a hand over his hair - so like hers. And like his father's.

"I can't - " she started before breaking off and glancing around in fear. There were ears everywhere, even here in the sanctum of her personal rooms.

Draco flicked his wand and a soft buzzing surrounded them. "A trick from Uncle Severus," he intoned quietly. "No one will hear. Now what can't you?"

A look of pride flashed in her eyes before they resumed their dull contemplation of the boy - man? - boy in front of her. "I can't face them any longer. I can't stand to know that creature is here, always here. That he's touched my son," she said, moving her hand over his left forearm. "That we cannot escape him. Cannot move him." She huffed a humorless laugh. "The Dark Lord, our ever-present, freeloading, semi-permanent guest. He and his bloody brethren of twisted souls, tainting my house, our home, with their revels and their murders and their rapes and their filth." She hissed the last word out, heaving a breath after such a long diatribe.

"I know." It was the only reply he could muster, but it was enough. He understood. "Perhaps…"

She stared at him again, the color in her cheeks the only lingering evidence of her momentary lapse in control.

"I have an idea, Mum. It's not a solution. Just...an easement. If you're willing to try, I mean."

"My darling boy," she murmured, threading her fingers through his duckling soft hair. "I'm all ears."

.oooOOOooo.

They started small. They didn't know how observant or how paranoid he would be, so they started with the old magics.

Narcissa moved into the kitchen, mask back in place, hair coiffed to perfection and ready to wage what battle she could. "Fitsy, I need you."

The little elf turned her huge eyes on the mistress of the manor. "Fitsy is here to serve the honorable house of Malfoy. How may Fitsy help mistress?"

Narcissa handed her several balls of fine, fine wool. "I would like you to make a blanket out of this wool. It must match the blanket that is already in the Dark Lord's chambers in every detail. Do you understand?."

"Yes mistress, Fitsy is pleased." The creature reached forward to grasp at the balls of fibre, then removed her hands, sucking her fingers as if burned. "Mistress?" the elf questioned. "This is...old, old magic."

A glimmer of a smile. "Yes, it is. And it is undetectable. I must order you not to speak a word of this exchange to anyone. Our secret, yes Fitsy?"

"Our secret mistress," she breathed in return, taking the wool and scampering off to the long-disused sewing room.

Narcissa nodded her head and left the room to see to her guests.

.oooOOOooo.

She tampered with the bath next, carefully and strategically weakening the temperature control charm so that it would flare, icy cold then scalding hot, at unpredictable intervals. The Dark Lord (she said the words mockingly in her head now, though she was still too frightened to even think his real name) did enjoy his long showers in the mornings.

The enraged cry from three floors above her sitting room was music to her ears.

The slightly reddened skin of her supposed master was even better. She suppressed a smile of sheer satisfaction.

.oooOOOooo.

She would admit that she got a bit carried away after that.

A slight addition to the washing powder that would interact with the magic in his new blanket.

An additive to the cognac that sat on the dressing table in his rooms.

Mildly toxic flowers hidden at the bottom of the arrangement at his bedside.

Topical irritants in his handkerchiefs.

She watched day by day as their dark lord grew tired, irascible, and even quicker to anger than normal. She delighted internally as his nose and eyes grew pink and his skin - already an unhealthy green - took a turn toward grey.

And still, she plotted.

.oooOOOooo.

The next week saw Draco off to school, but not after he slipped a small bottle into her hands. "It's Muggle, and it should be undetectable," he said once he'd cast the Muffliato. "Uncle Severus gave it to me. He likes our plan."

"You told him?"

Draco nodded. "As I said, he likes our plan. He is happy to provide assistance once I'm back at Hogwarts."

Narcissa felt herself tearing up at the thought of her son - her only ally - leaving her now that the holidays had passed. "You'll be safe?"

"I will. I have my task. Uncle...he's going to help there too. He thinks there is a way out."

"The vow…" she started.

"He thinks there is a way out," Draco repeated firmly. "I'm to speak with the Headmaster upon my return."

She drew in a sharp breath. "Be careful, my love. I could not bear to lose you."

"Unless I can find a way out, I am already lost. We all are," he said quietly.

"I trust you, Draco, so I will trust in your uncle as well."

"And father?"

"I -" she faltered. "I don't know this man he has become."

.oooOOOooo.

She received a note the night of Draco's return, couched in terms of an adoring son writing to his mother. "Use the potion I have given you, mother. It will ease your pains. After two weeks, all your ills will leave you."

She was fairly sure she knew what to do.

.oooOOOooo.

She grew braver without Draco in the house. Risk to her own body she could handle, and she believed - oh to believe again! - that Severus would keep Draco safe at the school.

She borrowed a paintbrush from Draco's supply. She'd buy him new, not that her son had painted since he took up residence anyway. Carefully, she painted the inside of her best teapot with the Muggle emetic that Severus had sent, then returned it to the best guest chamber where the Dark Lord resided.

She didn't have long to wait. She was wakened at two in the morning by a panicked Lucius. "Narcissa. The Dark Lord," he breathed, terror seeping from every pore.

"Is something wrong, Lucius?"

"He is ill. I have never seen him ill! I don't know what to do!"

"Ill? I thought this body was indestructible!" she feigned worry, gathering her dressing gown around her and slipping her feet into the fur-lined mules that served as her slippers.

"It is! I don't know what to do! He's gone grey. And a bit mad. He's babbling about burning, pins and needles all over his skin. His eyes are red and he's making this sound. Like dry-heaving, but...worse. So much more terrible. What do I do, Narcissa? He'll kill us if this continues!"

She placed a calming hand on her husband's arm, trying not to recoil at the touch of her flesh to his. The coward. "I'll fetch Severus."

"Yes," he cried in relief. "Please, fetch Severus."

A quick floo call and it was done. The Order of the Phoenix, headed by Dumbledore with Harry Potter and her son - her beautiful son! - at his side, came through her sitting room and trooped their way through the guest wing, locking and silencing all doors but one.

Lucius was incapacitated before he'd registered his wife's betrayal.

Voldemort's remained unaware, writing in pain and collicking as the Order restrained him, snapped his wand, and began the ritual that would bind his magic.

.oooOOOooo.

The aftermath was messier than the plot. The guest wing was raided and Death Eaters were arrested, one by one. Lucius would go to trial, and she knew there was little hope that he would escape Azkaban this time. The Wizengamot had already transferred the powers of the Malfoy lordship to Draco.

Her son was a hero and she a free woman. Free from the interminable houseguest. She watched with pride as Draco and Harry Potter stood side by side and received their Orders of Merlin. Her son thanked her in his speech and she finally, finally allowed the facade that had protected her so long to crack enough for a tear to leak through.

She went home. Draco went to Grimmauld Place, supposedly rooming with Harry Potter. She knew better. Foolish boy thought he wouldn't be happy for her.

She was frighteningly happy. Free of a cowardly husband. Free of a tyrannical overlord. Narcissa no longer found it a trial to wake each morning and prepare for her day. She asked Fitsy to show her how to embroider.

Her first project, a simple sampler, held a place of pride in the sitting room.

Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.


End file.
